A Labyrinthine Journey: Soon Coming in 3-D

One of those nice things about electronic tools is that they can be rebooted. having troubles with your smart phone? Pull the battery and let it reset and reboot itself. Getting stuck with Windows? (or even Linux) Reboot.Clear out the cache, start with new readings of the program instructions or the data.

Nine times out of Ten that gets your electronics back on track.

Too bad we can’t do that with life.

I know, there are people who try to write and encourage people to just restart their own inner programming to fix their own emotional and spiritual problems. I’ve read the articles, I looked at the books. I’ve even tried some of the ideas.

It isn’t really that easy.

Sure, I can reboot how I handle (mishandle) the tasks in my life and it works for a couple days maybe. Sure I can try the latest new idea and a new sense of freshness comes for a few days. I can have some mountain top experience that might lift my spirits for a couple weeks.

But I just need a new “fix” sooner or later. The deeper change doesn’t cover things up and each “fix” has less of an impact on my life. Really.

For the last few months I’ve been in really need of that magic fix. The depression has been especially deep. The sense of burnout has been deeper and more profound. The procrastination has been more debilitating than I ever remember. And none of the “fixes” have worked.

A couple months ago, someone came into my office holding some sizeable chunks of concrete. The steps leading into the church were falling apart. Our trustees started looking and talking about the issue. They explored all kinds of ways to patch what had broken and to put down some nice carpet to make it usable for a while.

But every scenario led them to know that in 2-3 years they would be doing it all over again and more of it.

So they decided to tear the steps out and put in something entirely new. Sure it was a major inconvenience and mess for a while. And there are still a couple things left to finish the project. Some people haven’t been too happy with both what they did and the cost of it. But they believed they did what needed to be done the long term.

I’m afraid that is what God is doing with me. Illusions stripped away and old dreams torn down. I have felt more lost in life than I ever have been. Yet, I am believing that this is what needs to be done.

I want to know what all this means in life and ministry and future and even writing (they are all valued pieces), but that knowledge is not coming. So I have to trust the deeper reboot in my life. A clearing the cache of what I thought my life would be and seeing how God starts it all back up again.

Instead of seconds, this looks like months.

Sigh.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.